United States: Foreign Policy

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, and I will make three reflections. One is on the unpredictability of current US foreign policy; the second is to offer certain examples; and the third on what is our appropriate UK response.

In the past, there have been periods when we have been comfortable with US foreign policy and others when we have been less so. Those differences reflect in part our respective geography, history and culture. Our tradition is more elitist, that of the US led more by the democratic tradition, which was described by Alexis de Tocqueville as being subject to waves of popular emotion. Past phases of US foreign policy included the post-First World War liberal internationalism, followed by the isolationism of the 1930s and, post-Second World War, the commitment to international institutions with the Marshall plan, Bretton Woods and NATO. Then there was the harsh realism of Suez, the moralism of Carter, Reagan’s naive expansion of democracy, the crusader element of Bush—leading to the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq—and the ultra-cautious realism of Obama, which vacated the ground in the Middle East to Iran and Russia.

During those periods, however, at least US policy was predictable. Under President Trump, it is more capricious. President Zigzag has a large ego and oscillates from tweet to tweet. One of the few consistencies is the aim to overturn the Obama legacy and have “America first”. It is therefore more difficult for our Washington embassy to report accurately on the changes. Think also of the US ambassadors in Africa who have carefully built up relationships over time, only to see them demolished by the ill-considered expletives of President Trump. All this is compounded by cuts in personnel and attacks on the intelligence and diplomatic communities, but we are hardly a good example on the reduction of personnel.

The President’s idiosyncrasies have caused real problems for US ambassadors, not least the US ambassador in London, who was wrong-footed by the President’s decision—taken on spurious grounds—not to open the new US embassy here. When the President calls the press “enemies of the people”, it makes it the more difficult for the West to set an example and criticise press curbs in places such as Russia and Turkey. Equally, when he criticises the judges, it makes it more difficult for us to carry on our tradition of supporting the rule of law elsewhere in the world.

Particular areas of concern include Israel and Palestine. The orthodox view is that there can be no settlement without US involvement, but this US role has been made less possible—perhaps impossible—by the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the reduction in aid to UNRWA. The President has made childish comments about the North Korean leader such as calling him Little Rocket Man, and said, “My button is bigger than yours” and “I will destroy North Korea”. These were all to the embarrassment of our ally, South Korea, which seeks to build bridges with the north.

By reducing security aid to Pakistan, the US could well lose a key source of intelligence on terrorism. The points on Iran have already been well made by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, and others. There have been similar brash utterances on climate change, Latin America, NATO and Russia.

How should we respond? Our response in respect of climate change, Iran and the Middle East has been measured and correct. We have avoided bluster but at the same time have accepted that the US is a key ally—particularly in the field of intelligence and US agencies—and have avoided divergence wherever possible, looking long. We should not seek differences with the US but should recognise that over great swathes of policy, our position is much closer to that of our EU partners. This is hardly surprising, as the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, would no doubt say, because of the working relationships developed over many years by diplomats and Ministers.

We will continue to bring major assets to the table: the P5 and our hard and soft power, which are relevant to our current discussions with President Macron. We will co-operate with the French on defence, building on St Malo and the Lancaster House agreements on climate change and many other policies. What shall we exchange for the French gesture on Bayeux? As a Francophile decorated by France, I counsel against offering our French colleagues the Maclise paintings in the Royal Gallery. Yes, we should avoid policy divergences with the US but, notwithstanding Brexit, we should align our policies and interests with those of our EU partners, particularly France.